Say what you will about The Pirate Bay and its admins, but you can't say they lack a sense of humor. (Source: The Pirate Bay)

Arggh, the ship isn't sunk yet!

Many times the good things in life just don't last. That may yet be the case with The Pirate Bay. For years internet users worldwide used the site to get their music, TV, and movie fix. Some of the torrents were legal, others were orphaned works (technically illegal to share), and still others were blatant examples of infringement. But all these torrents had one thing in common -- they brought people across the world together through enjoyable experiences.

However, yesterday the legal woes of the world's largest torrent site forced it to temporarily go offline, signalling a potential end to those happy times. The site's legal crisis first began when Swedish courts found the site's admins guilty of copyright infringement and ordered them jailed and fined over $3.6M USD.

The site was purchased by Sweden's Global Gaming Factory, which made a bid to make the site legit under a rather nebulous plan. Now it appears that bid -- and the site -- may be in jeopardy thanks to the aggressive legal action of copyright protection organizations.

The MPAA, RIAA, and IFPI sued the ISP that provided service to The Pirate Bay's ISP and won. That ISP was ordered on Monday by a Swedish court to take down the site or face daily fines of $70,000 USD. The site was quickly taken down Monday, only to pop back up after a few hours, only to be taken down yet again.

The site owners, who are currently appealing the original judgement, write, "The good people at the MAFIAA decided to sue. Not TPB [The Pirate Bay], not the owners of TPB. Not even TPBs ISP. They decided to sue TPBs ISPs ISP. And you know what? They won. They made a court believe their #lies and they made them force the ISPs ISP to shut down access to TPB."

"The MAFIAA has spent millions of dollars and endless amounts of time to get this ban in order. Our guess is that they also bribed a bit to get it since it violates so many laws not only in Sweden but also in the EU, not to mention violations against human rights. And what do they have to show for it? [Three] hours of partial downtime."

The Pirate Bay admins refer to the MPAA, RIAA, and IFPI, collectively, as MAFIAA due to the organizations' reputation for resorting to at times thuggish legal tactics. Whatever name you know these organizations as, it is clear that they're on a roll, with massive jury verdicts over U.S. citizens Jammie Rassett-Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum, and securing an order to takedown of the world's largest torrent site.

However, The Pirate Bay admins remain defiant and determined. As of this morning the site was back online, with no apparent service interruptions. The admins are now offering a new T-Shirt for sale on the home page mocking the copyright protection organizations. The shirt reads, "I spent months of time and millions of dollars to close down The Pirate Bay and all I'll get is this beautiful t-shirt!"

Further, the true impact of the takedown and other potential future takedowns may be minimized by the spread of a recently released, easily accessible, archive of the entire site, including all its torrents, written in SQLite3.

"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein